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Lilith
My head pounded, my tongue appeared to be in need of a shave, and standing up to walk to the bathroom was the most complex physical activity I was capable of. Nevertheless, I was alive and feeling a great deal better than I had the night before.
Finn handed me a cup of tea. “There you go, love. Just drink it slowly mind, so you don’t go all Exorcist on me again.”
I looked at him in horror. “Oh God. Please don’t tell me I threw up on you.”
“Lili, I will never know how such a tiny woman could store so much puke. You were like, you know those industrial machines they use to pebbledash the sides of buildings? Well, you were the human version. And then just when I thought you were all done, you were all -” He did what I assumed was meant to be an impression of me vomiting that sounded like he was bringing up a hairball.
“Oh God,” I repeated, and held up my hand. ‘Please don’t. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be daft,” Finn said and leaned over to kiss me softly on the forehead. “I’m just glad you’re recovering, and let’s face it, you were long overdue your revenge on me in the ‘vomiting on your beloved’ department. How are you feeling now?”
“Like Lucifer himself slowly devoured me feet-first then shat me out of his Satanic arsehole,” I said, wincing at the light that was sneaking through the closed curtains. “ What in the name of all fuck happened to me? The last thing I can remember was getting up close and personal with the bathroom floor.”
“The nice doctor was pretty certain it was a really nasty case of food poisoning,” Finn said.
I had a flashback to the decaying corpse of the prawn I’d forced down at the previous day’s wake and nearly retched. “The buffet of doom. Oh, for fuck’s sake, it was your bloody mother being a malicious old bag from beyond the grave. She cursed me.”
“Yup, that would be my best guess,’ I agreed. “Especially as I didn’t see you eating anything else. The doc reckoned the same. Dodgy seafood is pretty notorious.”
I shut my eyes again. “Sometimes I wish I believed in hell, just so I could imagine her there. What time is it now?”
Finn glanced at his watch. “Just gone eleven.”
I hauled myself upright onto the vast bank of pillows and winced at the sudden movement. “Oh shit Finn, our flight, we’ll have missed it! And what about Niamh and Sinéad and -”
“Whoa, Lili, just lie back down sweetheart.” Finn gently eased me back onto the bed. “Niamh rang me from the private lounge at the airport where they were all safely holed up. All four of them got away from the house safely, Nat’s going to pick them up from the airport once they land in Spain, and Ben will feed them once they get to Santa Marita, vegans, carnivores and babies all.”
“Thank the gods for that. But I need to get new flights for us,” I groaned, already dreading the glare of the laptop screen.
“No you don’t,” Finn said.
“We need to be away from here,” I protested. “We can’t afford to lose any more time.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and placed his hands over mine. “I know that, you daftarse. What I mean is, you don’t have to. It wasn’t like I was going to get much sleep last night, so I got us both rebooked on the first flight tomorrow. I’d have done it for later today but the doctor was pretty insistent about you staying put for the next few hours at least, until we know your insides have stopped trying to be your outsides.”
“Oh.” My mouth actually fell open a little. “You did it? All of it?”
“No need to sound quite so surprised there, eh? I mean, sure we might end up in Ulaan Bator or somewhere, but this time tomorrow we won’t be in fuckin’ Dublin, so whatever happens it’s a win.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound quite so -”
“Incredulous?” Finn interrupted “Stupefied? Absolutely gobsmacked that the thick twat managed to press the laptop’s ‘On’ switch, never mind work out what all those funny buttons were for?”
“I was going for ‘mildly surprised but most definitely impressed’ actually, you wanker.”
“Sure you were,” he grinned. “But it turns out I’m a fast learner, and I’ve already told you it’s long past time I took a bit more on for the pair of us. Once I actually figured out how to turn it on, it was a piece of piss.”
“Get you, Alan Turing,” I said. “But seriously, well done. And thank you. I doubt I could write my own name right now.”
Finn leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “You don’t need to do anything right now my love,” he said. “Just lie there, keep comfy, and get better. We’ll just stay here nice and safe, live off room service for the day, and take the limo from the front door straight to the airport first thing tomorrow.” He pulled the duvet up a little tighter around my shoulders before adding, “But right now, get yourself back to sleep, and once you’re back awake I’ll run you a bath. That sound okay to you?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “That definitely sounds more than okay,”
I smiled in pleasure as he used his thumb to rhythmically stroke the bridge of my nose and I could already feel myself tumbling back into oblivion.
*****
